F. A. B.

[The admirable novel of "Deerbrook" sufficiently answered all who
had ever doubted Miss Martineau's capacity for that order of
composition; in spite of Sydney Smith's determination that no
village "poticary," as he called it, might, could, would, or ever
should, be a hero of romance, and the incessant ridicule with which
he assailed the choice of such a one. If, he contended, he takes his
mistress's hand with the utmost fervor of a lover, he will, by the
mere force of habit, end by feeling her pulse; if, under strong
emotion, she faints away, he will have no salts but Epsom about him,
wherewith to restore her suspended vitality; he will put cream of
tartar in her tea, and (a) flower of brimstone in her bosom. There
was no end to the fun he made of "the medicinal lover," as he called
him. Nevertheless, the public accepted the Deerbrook M. D., and all
the paraphernalia of gallipots, pill-boxes, vials, salves,
ointments, with which the facetious divine always represented him as
surrounded; and vindicated, by its approval, the authoress's choice
of a hero.

I do not know whether Mr. Gibson is not, to me, decidedly the hero
of Mrs. Gaskell's "Wives and Daughters." I like him infinitely
better than all the younger men of the story; and I think the
preponderating interest with which one closes George Eliot's
wonderful "Middlemarch" is decidedly in behalf of Lydgate, the
country surgeon and hospital doctor. To be sure, we have come a
long way since the Liberalism of Sydney Smith and 1837.

I was indebted to my kind friend, Lord Lansdowne, for the memorable
pleasure of being present at the first meeting between Queen
Victoria and her Houses of Parliament. The occasion, which is always
one of interest when a new sovereign performs the solemnity, was
rendered peculiarly so by the age and sex of the sovereign. Every
person who, by right or favor, could be present, was there; and no
one of that great assembly will ever forget the impression made upon
them. Lady Lansdowne, who was Mistress of the Robes, was herself an
important member of the group round the throne, and I went with her
niece, Lady Valletort, under Lord Lansdowne's escort, to places most
admirably situated for hearing and seeing the whole ceremony. The
queen was not handsome, but very pretty,